What is the purpose of government, if it is not to provide intelligent leadership, protect citizens, and provide for a safe, free, and comfortable present and future? How many of our leaders are actually operating under that criteria? We have, at the national level, a government intent on rolling back environmental protections and allowing the worst excesses of the past to return with a vengeance. We know better, but we have a president, vice president, and a Senate majority that are blindly, defiantly, and selfishly anti-science and pro-business. The country is in the hands of a suicide cult who will not renounce the mass delusion that keeps them in power, a mass delusion they actively spread to an ignorant populace they strive to keep ignorant.
We have a president, vice president, Senate, and all cabinet positions being led in near-lockstep by the Republican party of 2019, which acts at the bidding, obviously, of the fossil fuel industry, the industry that has created the climate crisis that threatens our planet, and which lobbies heavily to be allowed to continue business as usual, despite the damage it continues to do and the fact that it jeopardizes the survival of millions of species and millions of human beings. The president (with the full support of the vice president, who goes so far as to quote the president’s own lies from three years ago) has elected to roll back emissions standards, efficiency standards, and renewable power programs, and instead resurrect the coal industry, an industry justly deplored by a majority of Americans for its contributions to climate change and air and water pollution. It is an industry that kills Americans from the initial digging of the mines to the spewing of soot into the air, and our government has elected to throw its support behind this murderous fuel source whose destructive potential has been made clear by scientists for decades. The president makes absurd claims that “wind turbines cause cancer,” denigrating a cheap, clean energy technology of the future, while lavishing praise upon an antiquated fuel source that kills miners young and old through black lung and silicosis, poisons water sources with coal ash, and releases carcinogens and toxins into the air that cause respiratory and neurological diseases, in addition to planet-warming greenhouse gases.
The betrayal of the people and of the principles of government in general by the president and by today’s Republican Party has been well documented. What, then, can be said of the Democrats? Are they governing in a manner that can reasonably be expected to protect the health and welfare of their constituents and the planet? In New Jersey, the answer is no, and though the tone of the rhetoric is different, the false promises and ducking of responsibility is the same.
Mega-millionaire Governor Phil Murphy bought New Jersey’s election, spending over $21 million to win the primary—his nearest competition only spent $3 million—and then over $14 million to win the general election, nearly three times more than his Republican opponent. One wonders what he bought this election for. Though he has spoken about acting on climate change, and has just made a big proposal to build impressive offshore wind facilities, he has not taken any action on what is arguably the most pressing issue related to climate change in the state—preventing the construction of new fossil fuel projects.
As of August 2019, over a dozen proposals for fossil fuel projects were working their way through the permit stage. These projects, which include at least eight pipelines, four power plants, and a terminal for shipping liquid natural gas overseas, would raise New Jersey’s greenhouse gas emissions by 30% if they were all approved, at a time when the state needs to be drastically reducing emissions. Environmental groups have called for a moratorium on all new fossil fuel projects in the state, and have cited precedents for doing so, including former governor Brendan Byrne’s moratorium on development in the Pinelands, but Murphy has continued to dodge the issue. He has seemingly stalled for time, saying he would let the DEP work out the permit process, and then said the moratorium would be discussed in the state’s Energy Master Plan. The draft of the Energy Master Plan, which was released in June, contains nothing about a moratorium, though it proposes to somehow get the state on 100% carbon-neutral energy by 2050. If these fossil fuel projects pass the permit process and are completed and put into use, there is no way the goals of the Energy Master Plan will be reached. It makes no sense not to implement the moratorium if Murphy is serious about the goals outlined in the Energy Master Plan.
The governor’s continued avoidance of the question is disappointing and infuriating for environmentalists and concerned citizens of the state. Insiders say that, on the issue of the North Bergen Liberty Generating Station, a fracked natural gas power plant proposed for the Meadowlands, Murphy did not want to cross construction unions, who wanted the jobs the plant construction would provide, nor North Bergen mayor Nick Sacco, who wanted the tax revenue from the plant. These two small interest groups, who are interested in their own profit at the expense of the health of the residents of the state and the planet, are being allowed to override the will of informed citizens. More than fifty mayors have come out against the plant, and yet Murphy has not acted to prevent its construction. Oh, and the kicker—all energy produced by the plant would not even be used in New Jersey, but would be sent to New York City, which has not yet demonstrated a need for the plant.
If these two small (but apparently politically powerful) groups have prevented Murphy from acting on this one (of at least twelve) new fossil fuel projects, who else is he kowtowing to when it comes to the moratorium? If he was able to outspend his competition so outrageously in the election, what is keeping him from doing what is best for the future of the state and the planet as governor? What is he afraid of? Why would he buy an election, bankrolling much of his campaign himself, only to govern in fear instead of making a bold move to do what is right for the planet and its people?
Individual citizens and representatives of environmental organizations have been speaking out at the public hearings on the draft of the Energy Master Plan. Two hearings have been held, in Trenton and Newark, and a final hearing in Camden remains. Dozens of speakers yesterday called individually for a moratorium on all new fossil fuel projects in the state, with applause erupting from the audience each time the call for a moratorium was made. If the final version of the Energy Master Plan does not contain a moratorium, it will be a stark and utter betrayal of the state’s citizens and their future.
If there is no moratorium, what recourse will we have? What are we to do when the federal government is accelerating climate change and even a governor who likes to fancy himself the most progressive governor in the country will not oppose fossil fuel interests and do what government is supposed to do, which is to make educated decisions to protect the safety and well-being of its citizens and ensure that they have a future?
I checked—New Jersey has no provisions for citizen-initiated ballot referendums.
All I can think of is a massive movement taking to the streets, but it would require numbers greater than those we have seen so far. This cannot remain an “environmentalist” issue. It should be an “everybody” issue. Actually, synthesize those two—everybody should be an environmentalist.